


Lock It Up and Leave

by orphan_account



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2013-12-27
Packaged: 2018-01-06 09:51:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1105396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He used to have so much he wanted to say, but he thinks that he left the most important things behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lock It Up and Leave

 

David smokes now: he lets the cigarettes burn down until they almost touch his fingers, and sometimes he gets distracted and they burn him.  
  
The smell of smoke is tied to a long ago day, sitting outside a building, and Joe sitting beside him; Joe offers him a cigarette and lights it from his own. That’s how it begins and he joins him for a smoke in the evening—rarely at the beginning, but more and more often until it becomes tangled up in the moments they snatch together, rushed and precious.  
  
There are worse habits to bring home (alcohol and the sound of a single gunshot from a bedroom come to mind before he can push them away) but it’s not the best one.

  
  


  
  
There are moments that stick in his mind—  
  
The first time, hardly knowing who Joe is, but wanting something he’s never wanted before, wanting his hands on his body and him to call him _David, not Web_ and then _Webster, not Web,_ when that doesn’t work.  
  
Shortly after he returns and finds nothing the same as it was before, Joe’s hands are rough and close to punishing, and David knows that there is an unspoken accusation there, a demand, but he can’t quite tell what he’s asking for.  
  
The last time—  
  
He tries to forget (and fails).

  
  


  
  
Joe says, “We can’t do this anymore.”  
  
 _You could come with me_ , he thinks but doesn’t say. _My family has a place by the sea. We could stay there. No one has to know._  
  
The words don’t even break the surface. Truth be told, David’s surprised that it took him this long. When Joe leaves, David doesn’t try to stop him and all the words he thinks but doesn’t say won’t bring him back.  
  
 _There should have been a warning when this began_ , he thinks later (he writes it down, but the paper is crumpled up and dropped into a full sink). _There should have been something to say that you’re not going to get to take this home; that this is something that must be left behind._  
  
When Joe leaves, he drops something. David picks it up. When he finds the lighter in his pocket, he tells himself that he simply forgot to throw it away.  
  
He leaves it in his pocket.

  
  


  
  
Before, David had more words than most people had any use for. He had plans for an after a lot of people didn’t dare to imagine, and he wanted to tell people everything he had seen. He stops making plans after the war.  
  
Now, though, the words are gone; he thinks he left the most important things behind in a small room with a collapsing desk, and the only thing he took isn’t worth a fraction of what he left behind. David keeps it, though, and watches the flame dance until there’s nothing left to burn ( _How appropriate,_ he thinks) and tucks it in a box in the back of his closet.  
  
He doesn’t forget about it, but he doesn’t go looking for it either.  
  
There are dog-eared copies of _Flash Gordon_ under his worn copy of _The Great Gatsby_. He never thinks about burning them (although this could be because the thought of burning things reminds him too much of the camp). He doesn’t throw them out either.

  
  


He marries a woman and he loves her – this is not a lie. He loves her, he really does.  
  
David loves her but he loved _him_ first—a man who called him _Web_ no matter how much he asked him not to, whose hands were rough and who showed him just how easy it is to slip across that thin line between love and hate and – sometimes – back again.  
  
Downstairs, the phone doesn’t ring. It’s okay; he doesn’t really expect it to.

  
  


  
  
The sea is something approaching an answer, the wide open space, the possibilities that lurk beneath the waves. You can feel like you’re a million miles away from your problems and still running.  
  
Sharks, he discovers, make much more sense than people. There’s sense in their brutality – and, yes, he always thinks about the camp, about the people there and the depths people can sink to because, the harm they can cause to others – that he believes people lack.  
  
Even the sea and all the sharks in the world can’t erase the memory of Joe’s hushed whisper of, “ _Web_ ,” and wonder if it was as easy for Joe to walk away as he made it look.

  
  


  
  
Once:  
  
The beds are tiny, crammed into a room that isn’t made to hold so many people, and the others will be back soon—there’s an argument happening in the background, replacements who are new enough and selfish enough that they don’t know how to live with other people for so long. They’ll learn soon enough that there are some things you can’t run from.  
  
There’s desperation here: it hangs in the air and seeps under the floors, more toxic than any smoke, but the honesty’s maybe the deadliest thing here.  
  
It’s too easy to lie beside Joe, their foreheads pressed together, his fingers meeting around a skinny wrist. It’s late enough that it’s beginning to quiet down a little and early enough that most people are still drinking downstairs, and all he can his is his own breaths in the quiet room. Joe’s almost asleep, his eyes half closed, and his breathing matches David’s perfectly.  
  
David almost says, _I love you._  
  
He almost says a lot of things.

  
  


  
  
One day David goes out (he can see so far, the shore’s becoming a distant memory, he can almost forget the war but he can never forget Joe) and doesn’t come back.

  
  


  
  
The information trickles through the people who knew him, accompanied by a sigh, and a few jokes about surviving the war, only to disappear back home.  
  
There are a dozen apologies in Joe’s mind when he gets the news, but none of them are enough, and he knows that they’re not going to bring back anything that he lost ( _gave up_ , a voice whispers in the back of his head, _you gave it all up_ ) and raises his drink.  
  
There’s no point in apologising aloud (there’s no point in apologising at all, really): the only person who deserves his apologies isn’t around to hear them.

 


End file.
